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One day—oh! I guess it must have been about two grunts and a squeal after Curly and Flop, the two piggie boys, had the adventure with the pumpkin—something else happened to them. In the first place, they had to stay in after school.

Now, please don’t get worried, nor think anything bad of them on that account. They did not have to stay in because they whispered in class, or anything like that. No, they stayed in to help their teacher clean off the blackboards, but when they got out all the other animal children were gone.

So the two piggie boys ran as fast as they could, but they could see nothing of the other animal children—not even little Jennie Chipmunk, who could not go very fast, for every time she saw any dust on a stone or a tree stump she used to stop and brush it off with her tail. She was so neat and clean, you see, and as she had to stop quite often, on account of there being so much dust, she couldn’t go fast at all.

But, as I said, Curly and Flop couldn’t even catch up to her, which shows you that they had stayed in after school for quite some time.

“Oh! they’ll all be home long before us,” said Curly after a bit, sitting down on a stone to rest.

“I guess so,” agreed his brother, as he made his two ears stand up straight and then flop down again. “But never mind, I think you can get your pencil from Jackie Bow Wow tomorrow.”

“Yes,” spoke Curly, and then they went on a little farther until they came to a corn field. The corn was all cut down, and stood in big bunches, called shocks—not the kind of shocks you get from an electric battery, though, but corn shocks.

“Oh, let’s take a short cut through the corn field,” suggested Curly. “Maybe then we can get ahead of the others.”

“All right,” said Flop. “We’ll do it.” And, though they had never gone through this corn field, because it was owned by a cross old alligator gentleman, they now started to crawl under the fence. Just as they were inside the field they heard a little voice crying:

“Oh, dear! What shall I do. Oh, my poor tail!”

“What’s that?”’ asked Flop in alarm.

“I don’t know,” answered Curly. “Maybe it’s the bad old fuzzy wolf.”

“Let’s hide!” exclaimed Flop, and they were looking for a place to hide when they happened to see a poor little girl mouse near a shock of corn, and her tail was held fast by a stone that had fallen on it.

“Was that you crying?” asked Flop.

“It was,” said the mousie girl. “Oh my poor tail! How can I ever get loose?”

“We’ll help you,” spoke Curly. “We’ll root up the stone with our strong noses, and then you’ll be all right.”

“Of course we will,” agreed Flop. “Oh, how glad we are that you aren’t a wolf,” he added, and then he and Curly, with their noses which were made stretchy like a rubber ball, soon had the stone off the mousie girl’s tail, and she was all right, except that her tail was sore. But when her mamma could put some salve on it that would be all better, too.

“Oh! I can’t tell you how thankful I am to you,” said the mousie girl to the piggie boys. “Some day I will help you.”

“Ha! Ha!” laughed Flop. “How can a little mousie girl like you help us two big boys?”

“Hush!” exclaimed Curly. “It isn’t polite to laugh when any one offers to do you a favor, even if they are little. Besides, maybe she MIGHT be able to help us some day.”

“Of course,” spoke the mousie, and she felt rather badly because Flop Ear had laughed.

So the two piggie boys went on through the corn field, hoping they wouldn’t meet the cross old alligator man, who owned it, and who didn’t like animal boys. And the mousie went on her way.

“I think we’ll soon catch up to the others,” said Flop after a bit.

“I guess so,” agreed Curly. “And when we do—-”

“Hark!” suddenly exclaimed Floppy. “Some one is coming!” Curly heard it, too, and he stopped talking. He looked around the corner of a stone and whispered:

“It’s the old alligator man himself. What shall we do?”

“Run!” exclaimed Flop. “Run as fast as we can.”

So he and Curly started to run but my goodness me sakes alive and a postage stamp! No sooner had they gone ten steps than the cross old alligator man saw them, and after them he came as fast as he could crawl on his four legs, wiggling his humpy tail. “Oh, he’ll get us, sure!” wailed Floppy.

“Run faster!” urged Curly.

Well, they both ran as fast as they could, squealing with fright, and the alligator man was coming right after them, and he had almost caught them when, all of a sudden, a little squeaky voice called out:

“In here, boys! Crawl right in here, under this shock of corn, and he can’t see you!”

They looked, and there, in front of a sort of cave, that was made in one of the upright piles of corn, stood the little mousie girl who had been pinched by the stone on her tail.

“In here!” she cried. “Quick, before he comes, and he won’t know where you have gone!”

“But he’ll know we’re hiding in the corn,” said Flop.

“Quick! Get inside and talk afterward!” said the mousie girl. “Besides there are so many piles of corn that the alligator man won’t know which one you’re hiding in, and it will take him all night to peek into them all. And after dark I’ll show you the way home.”

So into the shock of corn crawled Curly and Flop pulling a lot of stalks behind them to close the hole, and they were only just in time, for, an instant later, up rushed the alligator man. Of course he could not see the piggy boys, and he was much surprised.

“But I know they’re hiding somewhere!” he growled. And it all happened just as the mousie girl said. The alligator man peeked in nearly all the corn shocks, but he didn’t happen to look in the one where Curly and Flop were hiding. And pretty soon it was dark, and then the piggies came out and the mousie girl showed them the way home, and the alligator man did not get them. So, you see, the mousie helped the piggie boys after all.

And next, in case the salt cellar doesn’t hide in the pepper caster and make believe it’s a mustard plaster I’ll tell you about Flop having a tumble.